\u201cThe bugs just kept coming,\u201d she told 9News. \u201cThey were in my husband\u2019s shoes, crawling up our legs, crawling on our jumpers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Passengers say they woke up to screams as bed bugs crawled on their legs and up the windows of a Qantas flight. Photo \/ 123rf<\/p>\n
Another passenger, who was not named, told the broadcaster they were awakened by screams from fellow travellers. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was woken by screaming, a baby saying \u2018buggies\u2019 \u2013 some children were sick,\u201d the passenger said.<\/p>\n
The aircraft was subsequently removed from service. Qantas cancelled the return Rome-to-Perth flight to allow engineers and maintenance staff to carry out a deep clean.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe sincerely apologise to customers for the cancellation of Saturday\u2019s Rome to Perth service, which allowed our engineers and maintenance teams to carry out a deep clean of the aircraft after an issue was identified on a small number of economy seats,\u201d the airline said in a statement to the BBC.<\/p>\n
Affected passengers were provided with accommodation and rebooked on alternative services, with some travellers reportedly delayed by up to two days.<\/p>\n
Qantas said its aircraft undergo regular cleaning and are disinfected every 50 days as a precaution, reported News.com.au.<\/p>\n
Bed bugs are small parasitic insects that feed on blood and whose bites can leave itchy red marks.<\/p>\n
Infestations on aircraft do not necessarily mean there is poor hygiene. Prabin Shrestha, chief executive of cleaning company SKG Services, told News.com.au that bed bugs are often unknowingly transported by passengers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can be carried on to an aircraft through passengers\u2019 luggage, clothing or other personal belongings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Bed bugs have previously been reported on international flights, including services operated by British Airways in 2017 and Turkish Airlines in 2024. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe bugs just kept coming,\u201d she told 9News. \u201cThey were in my husband\u2019s shoes, crawling up our legs,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[48378,50750,2372,264162,30142,138,309019,76430,28447,1359,70,71,305,16203,4271,111,139,69,90,17976,1523,29459,72,4372,18640,196829,9186,13993],"class_list":["post-630201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-bed","tag-blankets","tag-board","tag-bug","tag-bugs","tag-business","tag-crawled","tag-crawling","tag-describe","tag-described","tag-flight","tag-from","tag-have","tag-insects","tag-luggage","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-outbreak","tag-over","tag-passengers","tag-perth","tag-qantas","tag-rome","tag-screams","tag-travellers","tag-waking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}